


stitching together the sea

by green_piggy



Category: Tales of Series, Tales of the Abyss
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Character Study, Dissociation, During Canon, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Intrusive Thoughts, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Esteem Issues, Sewing, Spoilers, Survivor Guilt, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Violent Thoughts, happy 15th anniversary abyss!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:54:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28098756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/green_piggy/pseuds/green_piggy
Summary: "When…" Luke draws his lips in. That expression of worry, one that Guy keeps seeing more and more, causes wrinkles in his face. He wants nothing more than to run his hand over it and smooth them all away… but Luke isn't a child any more.Well, heis,but… but not physically.He watches Luke swallow. Curl his hands into loose fists on top of his knees. He brings his crossed legs a bit closer to his body before looking up at Guy, green eyes shining from the smouldering campfire. "When was the first time you killed someone?"—Guy is asked by Luke to teach him the basics of sewing. Things only go downhill from there.
Relationships: Guy Cecil & Jade Curtiss, Guy Cecil & Luke fon Fabre
Comments: 13
Kudos: 39





	stitching together the sea

**Author's Note:**

> happy anniversary to my favourite game!! remaster when. naturally i wrote guy suffering. again. no i will never change. sorry guy
> 
> i wrote most of this while on a flight with sonic music blasting from my headphones. inspiration strikes at the _weirdest_ of times. and, no, i have no idea how this is almost 8k lmao
> 
> gets pretty dark, so please read the tags and proceed accordingly (graphic violence tag is for the violent thoughts). guy’s got a fucking Lot of trauma, my dudes (and i may or may not be doing a little bit of hashtag Projecting. he’s my fave fictional character ever. let me have this much)
> 
> Just a fyi that i don’t ship guy and luke romantically. nothing against anyone who does, it just makes me very uncomfortable for multiple reasons. absolutely ADORE it platonically, though. basically; please don’t interpret this fic (or anything i write involving them) as romantic. thanks!

Today has been a long, grueling day of travel; even Jade makes a face of relief when they all agree to stop and set up camp for the night. They gather enough sticks to make two fires; Jade and Tear’s artes soon have them ablaze. As most of them cluster towards the fire closest to the cave, Guy settles down near the other one, careful to keep a good distance between him and the flames. He’s not a big fan of them.

He’s not a big fan of a lot of things.

Still, he’s got a shirt to repair, so after retrieving some needle and thread from underneath a snoozing Mieu in the item bag, he peels off his gloves, unbuttons his shirt, and tugs it off from underneath his vest. It leaves his arms and most of his chest exposed to the night’s chill. A monster attack had caught the sleeve and left a tear in its wake. Thankfully, it was only a small rip; it shouldn’t take him more than a few minutes to have it sewn up and looking as good as new.

Just as he begins to unroll the spool of white thread, he hears footsteps fumbling behind him. They’re slow, hesitant; he doesn’t need to see the shadow that falls over the fire to know who’s behind him.

Guy twists his head over and up his right shoulder with a small smile. “What’s up, Luke?”

Luke startles, his hands wringing themselves tight enough to make his gloves squeak. Not for the first time, and definitely not for the last, Guy wants to shake him by his shoulders. He’d never say it out loud, but he misses the self-confidence Luke used to have. Perhaps, yes, it had often borderlined on sheer arrogance, but he’d take — well. He’d take _anything_ over this Luke, the Luke who bumbles and frequently apologises and genuinely believes that his mere existence is an offense greater than any other. That existing — that _living —_ is too much, is too painful. No child should feel like that. Guy doesn’t ever want anyone to feel the way that he had done as a kid.

He inhales. Not tonight.

(How can Luke think so lowly of himself, when he’s the main thing keeping Guy going. If he ever — _Yulia,_ imagining a life without Luke is—

_Not tonight.)_

“I just saw you sitting over here by yourself,” Luke says. The anxiety on his face melts into wide-eyed wonder. He peers over Guy’s shoulder, close enough that Guy can feel the warmth radiating from his body. “Are you… sewing?”

“Yeah.” Guy holds up the right sleeve. “Monster ripped it, and _some_ of us have to keep up appearances.”

His cheeks colour. “I look just fine!”

“Whatever you say, Mister Six-Pack.”

_“Mister—”_ Luke snorts, though, and flops down to sit next to Guy. Cross-legged, he rests his arms on his knees. Guy can tell, from the pursed lips to the slight frown, that he wants to say something, but just hasn't quite yet worked up the courage to do so.

Guy’s content to continue his work until Luke’s ready. He unfurls more of the thread. When he gets about enough, he reaches for a pair of sewing scissors to snip it — and that’s when he hears Luke’s quiet voice, almost lost among the crackling and snapping of branches in the fire.

“Can you teach me?”

Guy likes to think that a lifetime of very careful compartmentalisation of his emotions and thoughts makes him pretty hard to startle (women aside), but he still fumbles and drops the scissors. They clatter against the dry earth. He hurries to pick them up, but judging from Luke’s pout, he’s not amused.

“It’s not _that_ much of a surprise,” he mutters.

He sounds so childish in that moment that a selfish relief washes over Guy. Dangling the scissors from his finger, he rests his elbow on his thigh and looks over to him. “...You really wanna learn?”

“I wanna be useful.”

“It’s not about—” Guy forces himself to take a deep breath and to push down that hot spike of anger. Lashing out at Luke about his behaviour doesn’t help him. Unlike Guy, who thrives on spite and proving himself, Luke withers under any kind of harshness like that. He’s sure to put down the scissors before he continues speaking. “...Are you learning because you _want_ to — because you think it’d be a good skill to have — or because you see me doing it as some kind of grand inconvenience that I hate you for?”

Silence. Guy does sigh at that.

“Luke,” he says, “it’s _my_ shirt.”

Luke bites the bottom of his lip. Guy finds himself saying: _“Don’t do that, you’ll make it bleed”_ before he can stop himself. Sure enough, Luke immediately loosens his teeth with a slight roll of his eyes, but soon falls back into melancholy.

“...I know,” he eventually mutters. “But — you’ve patched up my stuff plenty of times before, and I never appreciated it properly.” He turns to Guy fully, eyes wide. “So I just want to say that I’m—”

Guy flicks Luke’s nose and snorts at his yelp. “If you’re gonna apologise, _forget it.”_

“But—”

“If you really need to say something, just say thanks!” Guy sighs. “And you make it sound like it’s some great ordeal when it really isn’t. It doesn’t take long, and I enjoy doing it. It’s relaxing.”

Luke blinks. “It is?”

“Yeah.”

Luke opens his mouth to say something else — another apology, maybe, or something else that will make Guy want to sock him and make him see _sense —_ but his eyes land on Guy’s arm with a soft, pained noise. “That’s still…”

Oh, right. It’s a bit hard to see the faded scars, but Guy twists his right arm towards the light of the fire. The faded lines of the curse slot stares back at him. He only needs to think on it for a moment for the memories to rush back — that muted, terrible, all-too-familiar fog of _fury,_ working through his body and clawing into his mind, pulsing in time with Sync’s laughter—

He pushes it away. There’s no point ruminating on it.

“Yeah, right?” Guy laughs. “It doesn’t have any of its lingering effects or anything like that, don’t worry.” He drops his arm again, shaking it out as he does so. “Just left a bit of an ugly mark.”

He holds his hand up as soon as Luke shifts. “And it’s not your fault, okay? Nothing relating to it was your fault. Not my actions while I was influenced by it, not getting it — _nothing._ If I hear anything resembling an apology, I _will_ hit you.”

Luke pulls back into himself all meek-like. It takes him a few seconds, but he nods and gives Guy a soft smile. “...Thanks.”

Guy smiles back. He then pats the space next to him. The mud flakes off against his hand. Luke’s smile widens, and he shuffles closer to Guy, close enough that his knee would bump Guy’s hip were he to move any nearer.

“So!” Guy announces. “Sewing. It’s not difficult. Just takes practice.”

Luke nods. He’s in full listening mode, hands in his lap and leaning forward eagerly, eyes virtually glowing. Even before — before all of this, before Akzeriuth, all it took was the mere mention of Van and he would—

Guy breathes in deeply. He hopes Luke doesn’t notice.

It’s becoming more difficult to tell himself to not think about things, to not get swarmed by emotions, when there’s more and more that he can’t bear to think about.

“First, you find the rip.” He picks up the shirt that had been draped over his knees and hands it to Luke. He remembers, belatedly, that he had already shown Luke where it was, but it still takes several seconds of Luke running his fingers over the material before he finds it.

“Here, right?” He holds it up between his hands with a grin.

“Nice work. Don’t pull so hard, you don’t need to further damage it.” He laughs at how quickly a sheepish Luke loosens his grip. “Now that you’ve found it, you determine what kind of thread will be best. In general, you want something as close to the surrounding material as possible. This one’s pretty obvious.”

“White, right?” Still, Luke doesn’t seem fully convinced. “Your shirt isn’t quite white, though…”

“Yeah, it’s that weird shade in-between white and yellow. It’s close enough that white thread’s just fine. You don’t need to be _that_ precise.”

Luke drums his fingers against his thigh. “What if there’s a bunch of different colours? Like, if Natalia’s top got a rip in it?”

Asking questions for himself without being prompted… maybe Luke’s changes haven’t been all bad. Guy hums, resting a hand under his chin. “Yeah, well. Her top’s mostly light colours, so you’d stick to white. Otherwise, if it’s only across, say, the shoulders, you’d try to find dark blue thread.”

“And you have that?”

“Got all of the colours of the rainbow in this.” Guy gives the top of his sewing kit a gentle slap. He doesn’t tell Luke that the colours he has the largest quantity of are the same ones composing Luke’s outfit. White and black are the two colours anyone should always have, that much is true, but he’s also got a hefty helping of yellow thread. Just in case.

Luke lets out an impressed whistle.

_“...Please_ don’t rip Princess Natalia’s top just to give yourself a challenge in sewing.”

“I-I wouldn’t-!” Luke squawks.

He’s blushing bright red. Guy laughs loud enough to startle a bird into fluttering out of a nearby tree.

“I kid, I kid!”

...Mostly. Luke could get some strange ideas into that head of his.

“Anyway.” He elbows Luke’s side. “Once you’ve chosen the thread, you measure out how much you need. The usual rule of thumb is a bit over twice the length of the rip, although it’s better to have too much than too little. Not having enough means that you gotta measure out another length and go over what you’ve already done and all sorts of other crap.” He shrugs. “Too much just means you’ve got a lot to snip off at the end.”

Luke nods.

With a grunt, Guy bends down and retrieves the needle and scissors at his feet. He hands Luke the needle. “It’s gonna be a nightmare in this light, but can you see the tiny hole in the top of the needle — ah, don’t stab yourself with it—"

Too late. Luke drops the needle as if it’s burnt him, hissing and shaking out his hand. “You said that this was relaxing!” he whines. “That _hurts!”_

“Yeah, sharp things generally tend to do that.”

Luke, in a display of true maturity, sticks his tongue out. Guy chuckles.

“It’s something you do a lot when you’re starting out, so get used to it.” Guy jabs his thumb towards the fallen needle. “Pick it back up and go find that hole.”

“Fine, fine.”

Picking it up between his fingers, Luke holds the top up near the fire with a noticeable frown. He tilts his head slightly. “...I think I see it?”

“Good one.”

Now, here comes the difficult part.

“Next step is to get the thread through the hole.”

“Something that small!?” Luke cries. He flaps his hands out and almost accidentally flings the needle into the campfire. “How is anyone meant to do that?”

Guy shrugs with an easy smile. “You just do. I tend to wet the end to help make it stick together and make it easier for the thread to push through. The most important part is to have steady hands.”

Luke hasn’t had those for a long time, Guy thinks. Not for many months.

There’s no point in saying anything. If he does, Luke will just huff, overwork himself twice as hard to prove himself, and probably end up with his fingers pricked with more holes than a pin holder.

He follows all of the advice Guy gives him — he pulls the end of the thread through his teeth to dampen it, keeping all of the flimsy fibres together, and pitches the needle between two fingers in his other hand.

Neither of them mention the behemoth in the room.

Guy’s a patient, well, guy. He’s used to waiting, for years and years at a time if necessary. Luke… is not. All Guy needs to do is sit there in silence and watch the tailends of the flames wisp into darkness. He’s careful to give only an occasional glance over while Luke sits there and grows increasingly annoyed. He tries not to show it, bless him, but as the thread misses again and again, his hands only shake more.

Eventually, he hears a frustrated grunt as Luke throws the thread and needle to the ground. “Damn it! How the hell do people do this?”

“Language,” Guy chides. He leans over to pick up the sewing items; when he sits back up straight, Luke is giving him a flat look that clearly says: _“You’re literally the person who taught me those words”._

“It’s _hard.”_ Luke tilts his head far back, neck straining, before letting out another sigh, this one more defeated than the last. “My hands just keep — _look!”_

He sprays them out in front of him so that Guy can see. With a rueful chuckle, Guy pokes the needle into his sleeve and holds out his own palms so that they’re side-by-side. While his remain steady, Luke’s have a tremor that only worsens the more he concentrates on having them _not_ do that. Guy’s are a good bit larger; slimmer, as well, what many would call the optimal hands for tinkering about with fon machines. Luke’s are chubby and stubby, the hands of someone who hasn’t quite grown into them. Not so long ago, the worst that they had seen was torn up blades of grass and the odd light bruise from easygoing training.

They were never meant to be drenched in the blood of thousands.

“It’s not a bad thing,” Guy says, because he knows that mentioning Akzeriuth is nothing short of an astronomically poor idea. “To be afraid, I mean.”

Luke frowns. “I’m not scared of _sewing.”_

Guy nudges his side. “I’m not talking about that, idiot.”

Silence. Luke’s face falls.

“...I don’t think they shake because of _that,”_ he eventually mutters. He’s staring right at the flames, expression grave. “That’s…”

“Well, you didn’t have such a bad case of the shakes back at the manor, that’s for sure.”

His frown deepens. “I wish I could stop being afraid,” he whispers. He brings his legs up close to his chest, folding his arms around them. “Of just — everything. No one else has a problem with — with…” He lets out a bitter laugh. The hairs on Guy’s neck stand on edge at the sound. “I can’t even _say_ it. That’s just pathetic.”

“It’s _not_ pathetic,” Guy hisses. He forces himself to smile and even out his voice when Luke glances over at him. “C’mon, Luke. Most people never need to lay a hand on a weapon even once in their lives. That’s why they hire people to protect them when they need to travel; there’s no reason why _they_ should ever have to fight. You just…” He finds his own gaze travelling towards the flames, but he can only look for a few seconds before closing his eyes. A deep, heavy, bone-aching exhaustion suddenly washes over him, one that it takes everything in him to not show. He allows himself a tiny sigh. “...You just fell in with a crowd of people who are soldiers or have had to kill before. That’s not your fault.”

“Even _Natalia_ doesn’t have this problem.”

“Natalia was in battles before you were. And she doesn’t fight up close — I imagine it’s a lot easier to kill someone when you’re not right in their face. Not to mention that she's also a Seventh Fonist. She's probably healed wounds and injuries that even Jade or Tear would wince at."

“I guess…”

Luke looks more pensive than remorseful, though. Guy can practically see the cogs and gears whirling in his head. As to what he could be thinking about, though… he hasn’t a clue.

Not until Luke glances at him, then twists away towards the fire when Guy raises an eyebrow, trying too hard to show that he hadn’t looked at Guy at all. Luke spreads his legs out again, hunches over a bit, and stares down at his knees.

A pit starts to yawn open in Guy’s stomach.

Luke sighs and sits up straight, and that pit widens into a chasm.

"When…" Luke draws his lips in. That expression of worry, one that Guy keeps seeing more and more, causes wrinkles in his face. He wants nothing more than to run his hand over it and smooth them all away… but Luke isn't a child any more.

Well, he _is,_ but… but not physically.

He watches Luke swallow. Curl his hands into loose fists on top of his knees. He brings his crossed legs a bit closer to his body before looking up at Guy, green eyes shining from the smouldering campfire. "When was the first time you killed someone?"

_Ah._

Guy turns away, careful to keep his gaze on the horizon. In particular, he looks at the small hill ahead of them. They’re near a cliff; if you go to the top of the hill, where there are a dozen or so trees, branches caressing one another, you could probably see the sea. "You sure you wanna know that?"

"Um…" Luke’s eyes lower again. "I mean… I don't…" He looks up, eyebrows creasing together — not with a frown, but with determination. "I don't really know that much about you," he says quietly, "even though we're best friends. I only found out recently that you even liked seafood."

Guy laughs. He tries to ignore the uncomfortable itch within his chest. He doesn’t like talking about himself. Never has done. Never will. "You don't like it, right? So we never had it. You don't need to fret about _that."_ He hums, resting a hand under his chin. “I mean, you like shrimp, so it’s not like you hate all of it. I think you’d rather talk to Tear alone than eat any fish though—”

_“Guy.”_

He turns.

Luke’s face looks pained. He swallows again. “...Don’t dodge the question. Please.”

It’s not just his chest itching — it’s his entire body, his palms, his legs, his arms, all of them tingling. His chest is beginning to physically ache as if somebody’s stomped down on it. He lets his hand drop and hopes Luke doesn’t see how it’s minutely shaking. No matter how much he wills it to stop, it won’t, and that only makes that chasm inside gnaw wider still. What is _wrong_ with him? “You really want to know?”

Luke nods. His fingers pick at the needle crudely left in the sleeve of Guy’s shirt. It’s strange how Guy doesn’t feel cold, even without it; if anything, he can feel himself warming, sweat breaking out over him.

It’s far from the first time he’s felt like this. and Lorelei knows that it never ends well.

It’s been a while, though. Funny, how you didn’t realise you were missing something until it came back with a vengeance.

“I was twelve,” Guy says, the words rushing out of him. The sooner he gets this out, the sooner he can make excuses and leave. Luke can’t see him like this. He _can’t._ “It was — I don’t remember, really. An escort mission to Sheridan? Something like that.”

He’s rambling.

“We were attacked by bandits.” He tries to shrug. His shoulders don’t move far. “I was the first person to get their weapon out, and. Well.” He smiles. It feels brittle and futile, but he just stretches it wider. “That’s about it. Not very exciting, I know.”

But Luke’s staring at him with wide eyes — horrified, Guy realises, and his stomach flips faster than the sand in a turned hourglass. He has to force down nausea.

“You were _twelve?”_ comes Luke’s whisper of a voice.

“Yeah.”

Luke just sits there, silent, blinking. He holds out his hands and curls his fingers inwards so very gently. “That’s so young… I can’t…”

“Technically,” Guy corrects, “you were seven when you did the same.”

_Technically,_ he doesn’t say, _you weren’t even born when I was twelve._

Luke’s head lowers. “I guess…” His eyes shadow, eyelashes casting his eyebags in even greater darkness, before he looks up.

"Do you regret it?"

Guy closes his own eyes.

"Well, yeah. Sure I do," he says, careful to keep his voice light. "Who doesn't regret killing people?"

_"Guy."_

He opens his eyes.

Luke looks pained. He clenches his jaw, eyes fiery, before he sighs and looks away.

_I know you’re lying to me,_ accuses that tone of voice. No doubt that somehow, someway, he’s convinced himself that it’s _his_ fault that Guy’s lying to him. He’s always so ready to pity himself that he never stops to consider the selfishness, the horribleness, of other people.

_Idiot._

How does Guy say that he didn't regret it at all? That, if anything, he'd enjoyed it? That he'd watched the life fade out of the bandit's eyes, vibrant turning to dull, watched him choke on his own blood, splattering some of it onto Guy's cheeks before his cooling corpse slumped against the blade of his katana, his small arm aching from the heavy weight, and all Guy had thought was: _"I'm going to do this to your son, Fabre. To your wife, to each and every single one of your maids and butlers, and I'm going to enjoy every last second of it”._

As for what he was going to do after his revenge… well. Guy had never expected to live for that long.

He’d slipped his blade out of the bandit’s chest, kicked the corpse away with his foot, and swerved to intercept the axe of another. Before that battle, the adults he had been traveling with had given him wary eyes and hushed whispers when they thought he couldn’t hear them. He was so young, they had murmured. With all due respect, did the duke truly expect this _boy_ to protect them?

Afterwards, none of them had said a single word to him. None of them so much had allowed their shadow to come near his.

He can’t remember what he had been doing. Had it even been an escort mission? Protecting what? Cargo? People? All he remembers is the intoxicating thrill from the blood on his face when he had imagined it to be Duke Fabre’s, his wife’s, his _son’s_.

Upon returning to the manor, Luke and Pere had both been eager to see him, but that roaring hunger within him had wanted more. He’d cited a headache, or some crap like that, and spent the rest of the night curled up in his bed, torn between clawing open his skin or getting up and finding his father’s sword and then Luke. In the end, he hadn’t moved an inch.

That vindictive part of him had never fully left. Not really. As a child, it had been the only thing that kept him going.

Lorelei, they had been talking about _sewing._ How the hell did they get onto this?

"Weren't you scared?"

He really wants Luke to drop this. Almost desperately so. _I'm not nearly as good a person as you seem to think I am,_ he wants to shout. He wants to grab Luke by his collar and shake him until he _gets_ it… and isn't wanting to do that yet more proof that he's not a good person?

But, of course, because he can't ever lie to Luke — not completely — he focuses his gaze on the flickering flames, shakes his head, and says:

"I've spent a lot of time imagining people dead by my hand."

He hears Luke exhale sharply. Subconsciously, Guy's hand reaches up to give his hair a ruffle. He's still not completely used to not having his fingers brush inches and inches and _inches_ of thick hair.

"I don't want revenge on you anymore," he teases. "Remember? So don't worry about it. You stress over enough as it is."

When he glances over with a smile, Luke doesn't return it. "Only on me?"

"What did I just say?"

A pause. "Not to worry about it?"

_"Exactly."_ Guy pushes himself onto his feet. There's a part of him screaming to run, run, _run,_ and he's up and moving before he can rationally tell it to calm down and shut up. _Run, before Luke realises what a horrible and sick bastard you are._ "I'm — I'm gonna help Jade with dinner."

Luke frowns. His eyes don't leave Guy's, and Guy can still feel them burning through him when he looks up to the starless sky. Not even the moon's peaking through the foggy night. It doesn’t do that sickening unease rumbling in his chest any favours; he’s never been a fan of the dark, either. "...I thought Anise was making dinner tonight," Luke says, slowly, carefully, and Guy's stomach flips.

"Huh." He laughs. It's such a hideous, shattered noise to his ears that it makes him flinch. Luke's frown deepens. "Maybe I'll help from a distance, then."

“But—”

_You really don’t know when to fucking shut up,_ snarls that terrible part of him. His fingers twitch. He’s seized with a violence so sudden and so strong that it almost makes him stumble. For a second, he can imagine the curse slot throbbing and burning — but he can’t use that as an excuse anymore.

“I’ll be back soon, Luke.” Guy curls his hands into fists tight enough that his fingernails bite into the soft skin of his palm. How would Luke react, he thinks, if he was to rip open his own hands, to show the dripping blood and torn skin, and shove it in his face and go: _“This was meant to be your blood”._

He does stumble at that. He can taste vomit in his mouth.

"But — your shirt!"

It’d be so easy to shut Luke up. Just wrap his fingers around his tiny throat and dig in and throttle him until he’s blue and wheezing and _begging—_

Guy waves a hand over his shoulder. He doesn’t dare turn around. "You can fix it! I have faith in you."

There's a brief silence before Luke makes a noise of determination. "I'll do my best!"

There’s another campfire sizzling nearby. The women are all sat around it, chatting with each other. Natalia is reading a novel with a yawning Mieu perched on her shoulder. Tear is combing through Anise’s hair as she stirs a steaming pot. Jade is probably — he's somewhere. Who knows where?

Guy should go to them.

He doesn’t.

As soon as he takes one step, he takes another, faster than the last, and then another and another and another and—

He's shaking. His hands are trembling like leaves clinging to a tree's wispy branch in late autumn.

What the hell is _wrong_ with him?

Is it even _him_ shaking? It doesn’t feel like it. He doesn’t feel very much like anything at all right now. Like only a gentle spring breeze would be enough to cleave his soul clean from his body, to send it drifting away into the sky, far, far away. He looks down at bare hands and bare arms, a faraway part of him knowing that they’re _his,_ but it doesn’t feel real.

His body thuds against the side of a grand tree. He must be high up — the hill he’d seen earlier? The air is slightly warmer, and he can taste hints of the ocean on his tongue, stinging his nostrils. He closes his eyes, shuddering, and there’s his sister’s scolding voice, Vandesdelca’s chuckles, Mary gurgling and suffocating on her own blood as it drips onto his face, and he can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t do anything as body upon body piles on top of him—

It’s as though the bones in him have all melted. He slumps completely against the trunk. A part of him is screaming to get up, _get up,_ but he’s so exhausted. He’s so _tired._

The cliff stops about ten steps ahead. Anyone would die if they fell from this height, whether they land on the jutting rocks that are only made sharper by the waves lapping it from the start of time, or in the water’s unforgiving embrace. What would it feel like, those precious few seconds before impact, hurtling through the air to your inevitable death? Would it be terrifying? Exhilarating? Or—

There’s a _crack_ of a tree branch snapping just behind him. Adrenaline kicks in along with instinct, propelling him when nothing else can. Guy’s body swerves around and draws his sword.

_Smack!_

It meets the length of a familiar spear.

Behind it, glasses glint in the moonlight. For many moments, there is silence.

"I would," Jade drawls, "advise against wielding your sword during a panic attack."

Guy stares blankly at him. The Jewel of Gardios rattles against the spear.

He arches an eyebrow. "You're having a panic attack, Guy."

"N-no. No, I'm not. I’m not—”

The scratch of metal against metal as Jade gently pushes away Guy's blade. His spear fades into countless tiny bright green fonons that flow towards his arm. Guy just — he stands there. He can't move. Even with his mind screaming to move, to _run,_ to get the hell out of there before — before—

He doesn't even know how to finish that sentence. If it even has an ending. He just needs to — to _go._ To run until his legs are burning and his lungs are heaving and everything hurts, but he can't move, he can't, is this even his own body—

"Goodness me." Jade rests a finger on his glasses with a quiet sigh. "Your complete and utter lack of understanding of your emotions is even worse than my own, somehow. At least _I_ can recognise when I'm having a panic attack."

Being chided on his emotional self-awareness by Jade _— Jade —_ has to be some kind of achievement.

“Shut up,” he hisses. He tries to shove his sword back into its sheath, but his body’s shaking so violently that he misses once, twice, thrice. When the slick noise of it finally going in rings out, it’s more condemning than celebratory.

The next moments are shaky. He blinks, and he’s on the ground, digging his nails into his arms. It’s — grounding. It makes it feel like he’s in his own body. He digs in, harder, tighter, the skin whitening around his fingers.

Cool hands ghost over his. He yells and his fist is flying and there’s a _crunch_ that shouldn’t make him feel as gleeful as it does. _More, more,_ cheers that child inside of him. _Crush him shatter him make him_ **_hurt—_ **

“Well.”

That single word stops that voice dead. Guy glances up. His vision is blurry, but he can make out Jade rubbing the side of his face. Jade raises his eyebrows.

“In hindsight, I _should_ have asked before touching you,” he says. “So this is entirely my fault.” He kneels down in front of Guy, one knee raised and his hand resting on it.

Guy opens his mouth to speak. All that comes out is a feeble, horrible, rasp of a noise, one that makes his cheeks burn. He wants to duck his head down and curl up into himself. Only the intensity of Jade’s gaze, hellfire red even in the near darkness, stops him from doing so.

“Tell me five things you can see.”

“W-what..?”

Jade closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. _Why are you still here,_ Guy wants to scream at him. _Why are you doing this for me?_ For any of the others, yeah — they’re all children still, he gets it — but he’s — well. He’s _Guy._ He’s meant to be — be one of the people holding themselves together, no matter what, not falling apart like this. Sagging and deflating like Tokunaga when he has a rip in his hemming.

Oh, Lorelei, _Luke._ He’d just—

“Luke is fine,” Jade says. A frustrated noise escapes him. His fingers flex around the material of his boot at his knee before he loosens them. “For once in your life, Guy, focus on _yourself.”_

Guy blinks. How the hell did he—

“When you can speak, I want you to tell me five things that you can see.”

He feels like a child, but even as a kid, he hadn’t been this fucking _pathetic._ Jade asking him to name shit he can see. For some reason, his mind latches onto a memory: him at three years of age, walking through the manor gardens with one hand in his sister’s, the other in his guardian’s. Stopping to look at the vibrant red petals, the ends flicked with yellow, of his namesake that will never bloom again. _It symbolises strength and courage,_ his sister had told him.

Right now, he doesn’t feel strong. He doesn’t feel brave. He doesn’t feel much of anything.

He shoves those thoughts away and opens his mouth and tries to remember how words are formed. “The sea,” he heaves out. “I can — I can see it.”

“Very good.” Jade nods. “What else?”

He looks down. The sturdy tip of a tree root is resting a bit to his left. “The tree,” he continues, despite how stupid he feels. He’ll feel even more stupid if Jade gives him that look, the one where he peers over his glasses and doesn’t say a thing. “The — the grass, too.” He glances up. His head feels too heavy for his neck, so he lets it loll against the tree. “The clouds. And, uh, you, I guess.”

That’s five things, right? He might be imagining it, but he swears that the pounding in his chest is lessening, ever so slightly. And then he’s focusing on it again, and his breath hitches, because this is so — _so—_

He hates himself, in that moment. Far more than he’s ever hated Luke. More than he’s ever hated Duke Fabre. More than he’s ever hated the Score, the world, and he wants to — he _wants to—_

“I’m not done,” Jade all-but-booms. “Four things that you can touch.”

“I’m not a _toddler,”_ Guy snaps.

Jade’s glasses flash.

“Grounding,” he begins with a clipped voice, “is a proven technique for managing and alleviating the effects of a panic attack — which, yes, before you interrupt me again, you _are_ having. It is not at all childish. What _is_ childish is your insistence that it is just that.”

With a heavy sigh, Jade runs a hand through his hair, messing it up. It’s such an un-Jade thing for him to do that it renders Guy speechless — and then, that chasm inside is swallowing him whole, because this is _his_ fault. Why won’t Jade just leave? Why is he still _here?_

“Four things that you can touch,” comes Jade’s quiet, almost pleading, voice. “Please.”

“T-the ground,” Guy says numbly. “The tree’s roots.”

“How do they feel?”

Oh, right. He doesn’t have his gloves on. Guy fists a handful of mud. “...Dry,” he murmurs. His fingers dart over the thick root. “Sturdy, too. Grassy?”

Jade nods. “Do continue.”

“My sword handle?” His hand jolts away from it as soon as he brushes it. “Cold. _Really_ cold. And myself.” He runs his left hand up his right arm, pausing when he reaches the slightly raised, scarred skin of the curse slot. “It… feels fleshy?”

His descriptions are nothing short of abyssal, but Jade looks pleased. “Excellent. Three things that you can hear?”

“Uh… my own breathing?” He sounds… a lot calmer than he had earlier. He doesn’t let himself fall down that hole again, and instead focuses on listening out for anything else. “The waves from the sea,” he says. “They sound like they’re hitting against the cliff. And the wildlife, I guess.” There’s a sudden tweeting noise. “An owl.”

“Very good.” Jade rests his other hand on top of his knee. “Two things you can smell?”

“The sea breeze — it’s pretty salty and strong, but… it’s nice.” It feels like home, he doesn’t say. “And the grass. You can tell it rained earlier on today, even if it’s dry now.” It’s a moist, crisp scent, one that mingles well with the sea.

Another nod. “And what can you taste?”

“Salt.”

Jade doesn’t speak. He closes his eyes, and Guy’s own must be acting up, because he swears that the colonel’s smiling.

When Guy takes a deep breath, he sits up straight, lifts his hands up, and flexes them in front of him. He watches the bend of bone into fists, and they feel like they belong to him. His arms are stinging from where he’d dug his nails in earlier. Now that he feels like a human being again, shame comes flooding in.

There’s the crackling of boots. It’s Jade, standing, and it looks like he’s about to leave _— finally —_ but he only stands to Guy’s right with his hands in his pockets. He doesn’t say a word. When Guy peeps up at him, he’s looking up at the sky. A few of the clouds have parted to usher in some moonlight. If Guy squints, _really_ squints, he thinks he can see a single star shining, but he’s probably imagining it. The fon belt is still well covered by the clouds, but its dim light is translucent even through those.

For a long moment, all he does is focus on breathing in and out, inhale and exhale, along with his senses — on the sound of the waves lulling against the cliffside, on the breeze stinging his nostrils, of the bitter salt on his tongue, of the starless blanket of dark that somehow still manages to appear kind.

Eventually, he can breathe again. He curls a fist over his chest and is disgusted at how sweaty and irky it feels.

He’s so _tired._ He always is, but…

“Why is it you who always finds me like this?” Guy manages to bite out. “First the chapel, now this.”

“Two instances is far from satisfactory for you to confidently confirm that hypothesis.” Jade pauses, blinks, and then seems to realise that what he said was completely off-topic. Still, it’s kind of reassuring to hear. Jade will always be Jade. “And someone must look out for the protector, I suppose.”

Guy curls up his legs closer to his chest. “Protector, huh… can’t say I do much of that, but thanks.”

“You do far more than you realise.” Jade sighs. He doesn’t continue speaking. From anyone looking at them from behind, it would only appear as though Jade was enjoying a pleasantly unpleasant view, which was exactly the kind of thing he would do, while the thick trunk of the oak tree obscured Guy from view.

Through the chirps of bugs and the gushing water from a nearby stream that runs into the sea, all Guy can hear is his own raggard breathing. He feels as though he’s ran all day, or swam for hours on end. Certainly not just… freaking out for no good reason.

When he leans back against the tree with a heavy sigh, Jade tilts his head towards him, blood red eyes still gleaming. Was that, too, another side-effect of the fonic sight arte?

Once, he probably would have found it creepy. Now, it’s oddly reassuring, in that strange way that most things are with Jade.

“Do you wish to talk about it?”

Were it not for Guy already looking directly at Jade, he would have missed the tiny awkward shuffle he does on the spot.

He snorts. “And if I say no?”

“Then we won’t.” Still, Jade’s eyes shadow, if only by a fraction, and Guy distinctively feels like he’s failed a test he hadn’t even known he was taking. “We’ll return when you’re ready.”

“I’m fi—”

He trails off, stopped by the glare coming both off Jade’s glasses and from the man himself. He says nothing; all he does is raise a single eyebrow, hands still in his pockets, giving Guy a look that speaks more volume than any amount of words could.

_“...Fine,”_ Guy finishes lamely.

Jade doesn’t make a noise.

It’s difficult to tell how much time passes, but Guy knows that it’s a good while before he pushes himself onto trembling legs. Jade doesn’t move, except for his hand rushing out from his pocket when Guy almost falls, but he catches himself and manages to stay upright. Still, it doesn’t go unnoticed, and Guy flashes him a grateful smile.

“Thanks, Jade,” he says, and finds himself surprised at how much he means it. “...You didn’t have to stick around, so… thanks.”

Jade looks more than a little bit uncomfortable, but he shrugs with a mock sigh, spreading his arms and hands wide. “You _are_ still young in my eyes. And there’s no need to thank me, truly.” Before Guy can speak, he’s turning towards where the hill slants. The campfires are but faint sparkles. “Are we ready?”

Chuckling, Guy falls into step next to him and tries to make his legs feel slightly less like jelly. “Yeah.”

They aren’t far into the walk — about halfway down the small hill — when Guy is stuck with a sudden thought:

“You have those, too?”

Jade tilts his head towards him with a hum. “Have what?”

“Those… panic attacks. That’s what you called them, right?” Even saying that makes Guy’s chest tighten and his cheeks flush, despite his best attempts. What the hell was there to even _panic_ about? How bad was it that he couldn’t control his emotions while talking about damned _sewing?_

Jade’s face is surprised for less than a second before he schools the expression into a careful, insincere smile. “Ah, well.” He’s silent for a long time, long enough that Guy doesn’t think he’s going to speak, then: “When I was around your age, I had quite some experience with those.” He looks over at Guy. “Attempting to rationalise and ignore any emotions does no one any good, as it turns out.” His eyes soften. “Especially when you have people who will gladly help you shoulder your burdens, even if you can’t understand _why_ they would wish to help.”

He knows fully well what Jade’s telling him, but… not tonight. Not now. He just wants to crawl into his sleeping bag and shut his eyes. And he _knows_ he’s being ironic — he’s ignoring the advice about not ignoring his feelings — but he just… he just can’t. Not right now.

Everyone else here is important or significant in more ways than he ever will be. It’s not self-depreciating. It’s a fact. Luke is a high-ranking noble and the scion of Lorelei himself. Natalia is the Kimlascan princess and next-in-line for the throne. Jade is a Malkuthian colonel who is also the best friend of the _emperor._ Tear is a high-ranking sergeant and Yulia’s descendant. Anise is the personal attendant of the Fon Master himself.

And Guy’s, what? The lord of a fallen nation that now exists only in the memories of its handful of survivors, its land drowned by the miasma?

He’s not important. Not in the same way that the rest of them are.

There’s footsteps scrambling towards them. “Guy, _Guy-!”_

Jade pushes up his glasses, a hint of a smile peeking out from underneath his hand. “Oh, here comes the nuisance. I think I’ll take my leave.”

Guy swerves his head from ahead to beside him. “Huh—”

And Jade’s already gone. _Typical,_ he thinks, with more than a little fondness.

“Guy!” cries Luke’s voice. “There you are!”

“Heya, Luke.” He scrubs a hand over his face quickly, right before Luke comes into view. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to run off on you like that. Just needed some fresh air.”

“Are you okay?” Luke frowns at him, something dangling in his hands.

“Yeah, don’t worry. I’m fine.” He reaches over to ruffle Luke’s hair, but pauses as he recognises what’s in Luke’s grasp. “Hey, that’s—”

Luke laughs. “I fixed your shirt!” He thrusts it out in front of him. “I ended up having to ask Tear for help, and I had to use a _lot_ of thread — sorry, I’ll buy you some next time we’re in town, but I think it looks pretty okay!” A beat of silence. “I _hope_ it looks okay. It’s probably terrible ‘cause it’s my first time, but—”

“Shut up, you idiot,” Guy breathes.

Luke blinks, but clamps his mouth shut.

Guy hasn’t cried for years — he thinks he’s lost the ability to, his tears burnt away with the flames that ravaged his manor — but _something_ prickles the back of his eyes when he catches sight of the sloppy stitching.

It’s far from perfect. There are huge loops sticking out of it. The two ends of the rip are still slightly open. The knot at the end of the stitch is almost the same size as Guy’s thumb. Were it sewn by anyone else, Guy would have thanked them, then quietly taken out the stitches and redid them himself when he managed to get a moment alone.

But it’s by Luke’s hands. Luke, who is so convinced that all he does is harm people. Luke, with the lives of thousands — of _tens_ of thousands — haunting his dreams and his waking moments. Luke, who fails to see his own worth, his own brilliance, how brightly his flame shines.

Luke, who is beaming at him with a grin so wide that it’s almost blinding to look at.

Guy runs his thumb over the threads poking out of the sleeve. The stinging in his eyes intensifies.

“It’s perfect,” he whispers. “Thanks, Luke.”

He tugs his shirt back on just as Anise calls for dinner. It's not a brilliant night. He leaves most of his food untouched, stomach still rolling with nausea from earlier, and asks to be excused from watch duty because of a headache.

But it's not a terrible one, either. Lying on his back in his sleeping bag, Guy runs his finger over Luke’s stitch, again and again, and thinks to himself, that maybe, just maybe, even someone like him deserves this much.

**Author's Note:**

> [ [twitter](https://twitter.com/greenpiggles) ]
> 
> if you enjoyed the fic, please consider leaving a kudos and/or comment!! thanks so much, and have a wonderful day~
> 
> also throwing this in because the fic never addresses it as guy would genuinely rather die before admitting he has them: intrusive thoughts, especially violent ones, don't tend to be discussed as much as other symptoms, if at all, even though they're common in a lot of stuff! ocd, ptsd, survivor's guilt, anxiety, just to name a few. probably because it's not a "cute" symptom
> 
> my point is this: if you have them, don't feel like that makes you a bad person, or some shit like that. lots of people have them. you have zero control over what crap your brain throws at you, and it can be pretty fucking exhausting. i have them. i know other people who do. what matters is what you _do_ in reaction to them.
> 
> keep hanging in there. you're doing amazing


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